Terms & Conditions for the portal German Medical Science

There is no copyright transfer from author to publisher. German Medical Science respects the intellectual property ownership rights of others and solely reserves the right to online publication and electronic storage in databases (see Open Access Charta). These terms are explicated in our Author's Contract.

Each article published in the portal German Medical Science is permanently available via internet free of charge ("Open Access"). This means:

Anyone interested may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search in, refer to and use the full-texts in any other conceivable legal way as well, without financial, legal or technical barriers except for those that are linked with internet access itself. The only existing restriction in connection with reprinting and distribution is the protection of the author's right of accurate citation. All the papers published in journals of the portal German Medical Science have passed through a peer review and will be permanently stored on the servers of DIMDI.

Are open access and the review of articles within a peer review process compatible with each other?

Absolutely. Indeed, the mission of German Medical Science is open access publishing of articles that have successfully passed through the peer review. Peer review is not media-dependent and as an important evaluation procedure of scientific expert literature, it is just as necessary for online publications as for printed ones.

Are open access and printed publications compatible?

Absolutely. Open access means free online access for interested readers but at the same time printed versions may be sold for a fee. Moreover, open access neither rules out printouts by the users nor printed archives for back-ups or permanent storage.

Is open access compatible with high scientific standards and higher quality?

Why not? Summed up you could say that exactly those factors that are decisive for the scientific quality in the case of traditional printed publications are also efficient for the type of scientific literature published within the portal German Medical Science and that they take effect. The standards according to which manuscripts are evaluated for publication within the jounals in the portal German Medical Science are those of the field to which the respective journal belongs to: They are both independent from the media chosenand independent from the fact whether fees are imposed for access to the publication or not. The quality of the publication is fully dependent upon the standards of the corresponding scientific field itself, but not of if the archive allows open access to them.
The quality of a scientific expert journal is dependent upon the responsible persons there, i.e. on the editors, on the members of the advisory committee and on experts that work on the reviews. On the contrary, this quality has consequences on the quality of the articles which are submitted by the authors for publication.
Open access-journals may make use of the same quality assurance mechanisms as the traditionally printed journals. Decisive is, who is involved with which criterion/standards in the process of publication and publishing - whereby the media itself (print vs. online) and the costs (chargeable vs. freely accessible) are unimportant.

Provided that the possibility exists within the Internet offer to enter personal or business data (email addresses, name, addresses), the revelation of this data on the part of the user is entirely voluntary. The personal data indicated by the customer is processed and, in particular, stored by German Medical Science in compliance with the regulations of the Federal Law for Data Protection (BDSG). The customer is at any time entitled to the deletion and/or correction of his personal data. The personal data is not passed on to third parties. Should a deletion or a change of the personal data be desired, then notify of the same in writing.

The author insures that he alone is authorized to dispose over the rights of use on his work promoted by copyright and that hitherto he made no legal concessions that oppose to the provisions of this contract. This also applies to the standard texts or master illustrations supplied by the author and whose rights of use he holds. If he offers German Medical Science standard texts or master illustrations for which this does not apply, or where it is uncertain if this applies, then he has to inform German Medical Science about it and about all recognizable legally relevant facts known to him. As soon as German Medical Science assigns the author with the procurement of other standard texts or master illustrations, it requires a special agreement.

The author is obligated to point out to German Medical Science in writing if the work includes interpretations from persons or incidents with which the risk of an infringement of personal rights is connected. He ensures immediate notification of the service provider in case of doubt or of alleged or actual legal hindrances.

The rights holder exempts the service provider of any third-party claims.

§ 2 Rights

The author transfers to German Medical Science the basic right of duplication and circulation of machine readable data media and their safeguard media.

The author transfers to German Medical Science the right to electronic storage in databases and web pages, to make available to the public for individual requests and display on the monitor. This also comprises the right to notify and transfer the document to third parties e. g. within the framework of national collection mandates, especially for the purpose of long-term archiving.

The author transfers to German Medical Science the right for the translation into the English language.

The author transfers to German Medical Science the right to Print-on-Demand-Production.

The author transfers to German Medical Science the right to copy and to convert the document for archiving purposes into additional, different electronic or physical formats. When doing so, impairments which are suitable to endanger the content’s integrity or the intellectual and personal rights of the author on the work are to be omitted.

German Medical Science grants an online-access-right to the author pertaining to his work that is stored in the database.

§ 3 Contractual Obligation

The work will first appear exclusively in electronic form, subsequent changes of the form of the first edition require the author's agreement.

German Medical Science is obligated to duplicate, circulate and adequately campaign for the work in the form specified in section 1.

§ 4 Fee

The author does not receive a fee for his work.

§ 5 Author Designation, Copyright-Note

German Medical Science is obligated to appropriately identify the author as originator of the work.

German Medical Science is obligated to attach the copyright note with the publication of the work in the sense of the Universal Copyright Convention.

The author agrees that German Medical Science publishes his work under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). That means that anyone can copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, provided the original work is appropriately credited. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. German Medical Science is obligated to attach a note about this license upon publication of the work.

§ 6 Final Clause

If not regulated by this contract, the general legal provisions of law of the Federal Republic of Germany apply. The invalidity or inefficacy of individual regulations of this contract does not affect the validity of the remaining regulations. The parties are then obligated to replace the deficient regulation by such a regulation whose economic and legal sense comes closest to that of the regulation to be replaced.

Liability claims against German Medical Science, that refer to damages of material or immaterial nature, by which the use or non-use of the information offered resp. through whose use erroneous or incomplete information has been caused, are basically excluded providing no proven deliberate or gross negligence exists on the part of German Medical Science. All offers are non-binding and noncommittal. German Medical Science reserves the right expressly to change and to amend parts of the pages or the entire offer without prior notice.

References and Links

With direct or indirect references to external internet pages ("Links") that do not lie within the responsibility of German Medical Science, liability would solely take effect in cases in which German Medical Science has knowledge of the contents and in which it was technically reasonable and possible for German Medical Science to prevent usage of illegal contents.
German Medical Science hereby expressly affirms that illegal contents were not recognizable on the pages at the time the links were set. German Medical Science has no influence on the current and future design, the contents or the authorship of the linked pages. Therefore, German Medical Science disassociates itself hereby expessly from all the contents of all linked pages that were changed after the link was set. This conclusion applies for links that were set within the own internet offer and references, as well as for external entries in the Guest Book furnished by German Medical Science, discussion forums and mailing lists. For illegal, erroneous or incomplete contents and especially for damages that arise from the use or non-use of such information at hand, the party tending the page that has been referred to is solely responsible, not he who merely refers to links in the respective publication.

Copyright and Trademark Law

German Medical Science endeavours to observe the copyright laws of the graphics, sound files, video sequences and texts used in all publications, to utilize the self-provided graphics, sound files, video sequences and texts or to resort to license-free graphics, sound documents, video sequences and texts.
All of the offers specified within the internet and brands and trademarks protected by third parties are subject without reservation to the provisions of the Trademark Law now in effect and to the Right of Possession of the registered owner. However, do not draw the conclusion that the brandnames are protected by rights of third parties through mere mentioning alone.

Legal Force of this Non-Liability

This non-liability is to be considered a part of the internet offer wherefrom this page was referred. If parts of or individual wordings of texts do not, no longer or no longer fully correspond to the prevailing legal situation, the remaining parts of the document remains unaffected in its contents and its validity.